Busy weekend...

Unfortunately I didn't get time to fit the replacement throttle body this weeknd... as you can see from the photo below, I was busy getting covered in paint while painting our new house instead.


So instead I'll hobble the car along to Jorrit at Auto Forza and ask him to install the replacement for me while he's doing the big service tomorrow... he can probably do the job in 30 mins when it will probably take me about an hour!

Parts delivered

I received the throttle body in the mail yesterday from David Askew. I just need to get some gasket sealant (I'll pop and get some this lunchtime) and I'm all set to install it at the weekend.

Hopefully everything will go to plan, the leak will stop AND my CO emissions problem will be solved! I'm kind of hoping that the high CO has been the result of the leak, with the engine running richer than it should due to this leak in the throttle body. It seems that the Ghibli ECU is not set up to vary the fueling map based on actual measured inlet pressure, but that it only varies fueling based on throttle position and temperature?

Since the car is scheduled for its big service on Tuesday, if there's any problems or fine tuning required then I'll ask Jorrit at Auto Forza to sort it out. To be honest, I'm tempted just to ask him to install the replacement throttle body? I'll see what the weather's like this weekend... since I also need to paint the new house!

Alternative supplier for throttle body

Unfortunately someone's beaten me to it for the 2nd hand throttle body. I just received an email from EurospareS informing me that when they went to take the parts off the car they discovered that they'd already gone!

So it's over to David Askew to provide the parts. Unfortunately, they're considerably more expensive here, but they are definitely in stock and still much cheaper than getting new parts. I've also dealt with David in the past (I got my 3200 GT turbos from him) and he's reliable and very helpful!

Despite the set-back, I should still hopefully receive them before next weekend!

Another parts supplier!

I've just received an email of Enrico informing me of another parts supplier that I was unaware had a website. They're Meridien Modena in the UK.

Unfortunately, you still have to fill out a parts enquiry form, email them or give them a call to order, unlike EurospareS where you can order online for most items. However, I'll have to see if they're cheaper, since convenience only gets you so far!

Throttle body ordered

After contacting EurospareS, a replacement throttle body is on its way. I went for a second hand one, since it's less than half the price and as long as it's in good condition (if it's not been over-tightened then it will be) then it will be more than adequate!

I've attached a picture of the donor car below:


It's a 1999 Maserati GT with 53k miles on the clock. I don't know what's wrong with it, but it actually looks in good condition!

I'm busy this weekend so unfortunately won't get to fit the parts until next weekend. Unless it's nice one evening during the week, since it shouldn't take more than an hour to do? Which reminds me, I'll have to get some gasket sealant...

Holy throttle body!

I've just spent the afternoon at Rica Engineering. The intention was to remap the fuel (since the car was running too rich) and to set up the boost controller.

Things we're looking a bit peculiar from the start. First we checked that the Lambda sensor was working OK by monitoring the exhaust O2 with another probe. The car seemed to be responding OK, adjusting to throttle responses by enriching and then making lean the mixture. However, we started to notice that the car was runnning very rich, with mixtures of Lambda 0.6!

Before even looking at the fuel map, we had a good look at the new intakes to see if they were working OK and to check that they weren't pulling in hot air from the engine bay. We concluded that everything seemed OK.

A couple of remaps were tried out, but something very strange started to happen. Suddenly the car was only producing about 230 hp (and continued to run rich). We then checked the boost pressure... about 0.2 bar! Something seriously wrong was going on since the fail safe pressure for the boost system is around 0.7 bar. This implied a big leak!

We both covered the inlets with our hands and straight away we saw and heard where the problem was... the connection between the throttle body and the Y-piece connecting to the two hoses from the intercoolers. We disconnected the Y-piece and found that the rubber gasket was damaged and worse still, there was a big hole in the throttle body in the grove that locates the fastening screws. You can see it in the center of the picture below (please excuse the poor quality... I took it with my phone):


It appears that someone's been a bit over enthusiastic when tightening one of the bolts. It also looks like the gasket may never have been in the right place, since it appears it may have been damaged during installation when tightening the bolt that caused the damage to the throttle body.

So, before I can proceed any further, I need to purchase and install a new throttle body! So that's items 23, 24 and 27 in the picture below:


And item 20 in the picture below (I'll probably get a couple of these):


Of course, this now delays me picking up the new wheels, since I don't want to drive the car with such a big leak in the inlet system.

The parts drawings are courtesy of EurospareS, from who I'm getting a quote for the required parts.

Toyo tires for Ghibli

Here's a picture of the new tires that I'll be getting. They're actually slightly different to the ones that I have on the car at the moment, since they appear have additional bands towards the edges of the contact area. These are Proxes T1R tires, which probably weren't yet out when I purchased my T1S tires.

Looking at the specifications for the two tires, I'm not actually sure which one is supposed to the better and how they actually differ? The T1S tire has a higher speed rating? Otherwise, they seem to offer the same amount of traction and wear?

Lambda sensor kapot?

I mentioned in a previous post that I planned to measure the voltage from the Lambda probe to the ECU this weekend. Well, I just have and have some interesting results.

 
From what I described in my earlier post, I believe the red wire illustrated in the picture above is the one from the Lambda sensor. It contains three wires, one red, one white and one black. The red wire I believe sends 12 volts to the heating element in the Lambda probe. The black and white wires send a voltage between 0 and 1 volts from the Lambda probe to the ECU to indicate whether the fuel mixture is lean or rich.

 
The wire connects to the ECU wiring loom via a 3 pin connector pictured above. After disconnecting the connection, I measured the voltage between the black and white pins from the Lambda sensor, but got 0 volts.

As way of a check, I measured the voltage across the red wire from the ECU and got about 12 volts, indicating that the ECU was at least trying to heat up the Lambda probe.

So it seems that my Lambda probe isn't working at all? Which would explain why my car failed the emissions test. It's a bit odd that I've not been getting a "check engine" light coming up on the dashboard though?

I'll have a chat with Jorrit at Auto Forza on Monday and maybe take the car 'round to the garage to check that there's no bad connections in the wire (or that it's broken anywhere). 

Suits you sir!

I heard back from Korst Banden yesterday. Seems the Bridgestone tires I ordered are no longer stocked by their supplier, so they've offered me instead a couple of alternatives that they can acquire on short lead time in order to get the wheels fitted next week.

The option was between some different Bridgestones and some Toyo tires. I'd normally have gone for the Bridgestone ones, but they were offering different treads on the front and rear. So instead I went for the Toyo tires. I have Toyo tires fitted on the car at the moment and to be honest I've been pretty happy with them.

So, I now have an appointment booked for Tuesday to get the new wheels fitted, so should have some pictures posted Tuesday night!

Testing the Lambda probe

I just spoke to Jorrit at Auto Forza regarding my conversation I had with the guy who did the emissions test. We agreed that it was a bit peculiar that the CO was high but the air/fuel mixture was OK.

This lead us to wonder what is happening upstream of the catalyst. Jorrit has therefore informed me how to test the Lambda signal; there's a wire loom that feeds to the fuel computer on the right side of the passenger footwell. There's an orange/red harness here with three wires inside... one black, one white and one red. This is a feed for testing the Lamda signal.

Across the white and black wires, measure the voltage with a voltmeter set on a 2 volt scale. Run the engine while monitoring the voltage; a low reading (around 0 volts) is a lean mixture and a high reading (around 1 to 1.2 volts) is a rich mixture. The reading should cycle from high to low about once a second. If it's slower than this then the Lambda probe is getting old and slow and probably needs replacing. If the readings are predominantly low then the engine is running lean. Conversely, if the readings are predominantly high then the engine is running ruch.

I'll carry out this experiment at the weekend; you can read a better explanation of the test here.

If the Lambda probe does look to be getting old, then I just did a quick bit of research. I'm informed that a Maserati OEM Lambda probe is about €250, manufactured my Webber Maranello. It appears, however, that there's a universal sensor, I think manufactured by Bosch, that fits the Maserati Ghibli and is available from Just Lambda for GBP 85 (that's about €130). A bargain!

I'm still interested in installing a wideband probe though... I might even be able to hook it up to my E-Boost 2 to display the Lambda reading... now there's an idea!!!

APK emissions testing

After doing a bit of research on the internet, I came across this useful troubleshooting guide:

Basic fault finding for advanced emission test failures:

• If a vehicle fails for high CO at idle and/or fast idle then... if Lambda is too low, the mixture is too rich. This can be caused either by a misfire or by a faulty Lambda sensor.

• If it's running very rich, the 02 and HC will be higher than normal.

• If it has a high Lambda and high 02 (0.5 to 1.5%), the "CAT" could be faulty. Before condemning it make sure its hot enough to work, the Lambda and other sensors are working OK and the exhaust downpipe hasn't got any leaks.

• If the vehicle fails for high HC then... if the CO passes, the vehicle is probably misfiring. Or if the CO fails and the Lambda reading is too low, the mixture is probably too rich and it may also be misfiring.

• If the CO fails, the Lambda reading is high and the O2 reading is high (0.5 to 1.5%) the "CAT" could be faulty. Again check out the simple measures above before condemning it.

• If the Lambda fails then... if its too high the Lambda sensor may be faulty, the mixture may be too weak or there may be a hole in the exhaust downpipe. If Lambda is too low the sensor may be faulty, the mixture may be rich or the vehicle may be misfiring.

I spoke with the guy who tested the car and asked him for some more details. He confirmed that it was the high idle test (2500 to 3200 rpm) test that failed, with high CO. He said that he also measured the mixture and that this was OK... apparently the mixture needs to be between 0.95 and 1.05 (something like that) on the Lambda to pass the test.

Looks like I need to measure O2 and HC to really get to the bottom of this one, after confirming that the mixture is OK on Monday. Given that I've had some problems with the Lamda sensor connection to the exhaust, the problem may lie with the Lamda sensor (item 32 in the drawing below). You can also get some good background on Lambda sensors on the Pico website.


If I have to replace the Lambda sensor then I'm tempted to install a wideband device with some data logging functionality, since this would be very useful for keeping an eye on the engine and making sure that it's running properly, rather than waiting for things to go wrong. It would also enable me to make upgrades more safely. I'd probably consider something like the PLX Devices R-500.

I hope it's not the catalysts!

Strut brace for Ghibli

I've been after a front strut brace for my Ghibli for ages. I know that Sparco used to make one, as you can see from the picture below:


I found this picture on a Japanese blog, but since my Japanese is not too hot I couldn't make much of it. I found another picture of the strut brace also on this blog:


It looks like quite a simple design. I was a bit worried about having one made for the Ghibli (I've tried tacking down this Sparco one, but it was discontinued a while back and no one seems to have it in stock... maybe the Japanese bought up the entire stock?), since there are ridges on the top of the strut tower. However, it looks like the Sparco design just sat on top of these ridges? If they did this then I have to assume that it's OK? Here's another picture courtesy of the Maserati Club Holland:


If I do get one made up then it will likely be by the guys at Forge UK. They've already told me that they'd be prepared to make one for me if I sent them the dimensions, so I'll send them these pics and a few from my engine bay and seek their advice.

An alternative was offered to me on Enrico's Maserati pages. A guy in Italy makes some strut braces for Ghibli Cup racers, but these require welding onto the strut towers. I try and keep all my modifications reversible and this one obviously wouldn't be. It would also necessitate sanding down the the strut towers to remove the paint and expose the bare metal and then a paint job once the brace was installed. This is just too much work, so I'm definitely after a bolt on solution.

Another option is the brace offered by MaseratiNet, although I suspect that it's intended for earlier Biturbos and not the Ghibli. To be honest, I'm not too keen on its looks and think it's rather expensive. If I compare this to what I could have made by Forge, I think the Forge ones look much better and I know the quality is good, or at least I've been impressed with stuff that I've ordered off them in the past! Looking at the advertised range of products, I think a modified version of the Cosworth Alloy Strut Brace would be just the ticket for the Ghibli and would go nicely with by Forge Blow Off Valves! The general form and rise of the Cosworth brace seem very similar to the Sparco Ghibli one.


I'm probably not going to order anything yet, since I think it's best to get the car through its big service and overcome the CO emissions problems first, but this one is certainly on the back burner!

Oil vapour recovery system

After installing the oil vapour recovery filters (also known as crankcase breather filters) I did a bit of research on the internet, since I was initially concerned at observing "mist" coming from the filters when I opened up the bonnet. You can see the two breather filters in the picture below, the two small cone filters that protude forward from the top of either crankcase cover, attached to black hoses that run to the back of the crankcase cover.


Now that I've disconnected the hose to the inlet system, the fuel and oil is vented to the atmosphere. Not good for the environment since oil particles cause smog (amongst other things). Before, this oil and fuel was sent to the inlet system and burnt in the combustion cycle. Good for the environment, but not so good for the car, since oil reduces the efficiency of the cumbustion cycle, plus the vapour is a bit warm, heating the charge air slightly (this is probably negligible though). I also suspect that the oil from this oil vapour system was falling onto the air filters in the air boxes and clogging them up, since when I opened up the air boxes I noticed a reasonable amount of oil staining on the top (engine side) of the filters. This will have been robbing the engine of some power since it will have reduced the efficieny of the air filters considerably.

After looking on the EurospareS site, it would be possible to retro-fit a PCV (positive crankcase ventilation) system onto my pre-MY94 Ghibli by ordering the parts pictured below (click on picture to enlarge):


This system has an oil knock out tank, which collects the oil vapour and re-cycles it back into the oil system via a conneciton to the sump tank. This means that only warm air with a bit of fuel vapour is sent to the inlet system for combustion and means that oil system is closed loop rather than open loop as I have it and how it was installed on the pre-MY94 Ghiblis.

This is good for the environment, since the unburnt fuel gets burnt and the oil stays in the engine. I'm not convinced that it's good for the car though, since the oil that collects in the knock out tank is undoubtedly contaminated and will degrade the quality of the oil in the engine. This means that regular oil changes are very important! On the old system, the oil vapour simply gets burnt and the volume of oil in the engine decreases. This means that checking the oil level on the pre-MY94 cars is more critical than on the MY94 cars (mental note to check the oil level more frequently on my car!).

If I put my environmentalist hat on, I'd go for the option that was already installed on my car, with the oil and fuel vapour being burnt in the engine. With my tuning enthusiasts hat on, I prefer the option as it is now, venting straight to atmosphere (I like the smell). I think the solution that is installed on the MY94 cars is driven by anti-smog legislation. I think it's only environmentally sound if the used oil is recycled or disposed of in a controlled manner that is environmentally sound, but as a driver I can't gaurantee this, since it's the responsibility of the garage who does the maintenance work or of the disposal company where I drop the used oil off at after making the oil change myself.

Since I don't drive my Ghibli frequently, I don't think I'm a big contributor to environmental damage with this car. If I used the car daily then I'd probably retrofit the PCV system. But for occassional driving, I'd rather know that the oil quality is good and that there's the highest quality mixture going through the cylinders. So for now I'll stick to the newly modified system.

Rica appointment re-scheduled

I'm finding it difficult to keep up! I spoke with Jorrit at Auto Forza yesterday and he informed me that he wouldn't get time to service my car until after his holidays, but that he'd do my car as soon as he got back (the upside is that at least he'll be well rested and enthusiastic when he does my service!).

I've therefore taken the opportunity to bring forward my visit to Rica and the dyno... now planned for Monday 17th July. Looking forward to it...

E-boost 2 road setup

I decided to reset my E-boost 2 yesterday evening, spurred on by the guy at the garage's comments to take the car for a long hard drive.

There's a decent stretch of quiet dual carriage-way not far from where I live (the motorway quite literally stops dead after the council ran out of money while constructing it) which is great for testing out the Ghibli. If you go at the right time there's practically no one there!

I started by returning the sensitivity of the controller back to default. What I noticed now was that the boost pressure was now "wobbling" at the set pressure, which was a little odd.

I then reduced the gate pressure (the pressure at which the wastegate starts to bleed off boost pressure) from the current 1.10 bar down to 0.8 bar. I noticed that the boost set pressure dropped, so I had to increase the set pressure value up from 54 to about 60 (these are nominal values... for some reason you can't just dial in the desired set pressure, but have to work on some arbitary scale). This brought the set pressure back up to about 1.19 bar (a bit less than I was running before, but oddly the car felt just as quick).

I then started to increase the gate pressure back up. I got up to about 0.90 bar before it started getting dark (and I had promised the wife that I'd be back at a certain time and I didn't want to worry her!). My impression is that the boost is ramping up far quicker than it was prior to the installation of the new inlet system. The boost needle on the dash is spinning right round to the top of the amber section and just holding full boost for the remainder of the gear. It seems to get to full boost by around 4000rpm, although it's hard to tell while driving at the same time.

There's still scope to improve this a little further, but I want to do this on the dyno where it's a bit safer (I'm not sure that the police would be too happy if they caught me doing twice the limit). I'll take the boost pressure up to 1.20 bar and since the pressure's not spiking yet, there's still scope to increase the gate pressure setting to ramp up to full boost a bit quicker. And then there's still the sensitivity to play with!

The connection of the inlet pipe to the driver's side compressor is still a problem, since it worked free again. I'm going to give this a clean and use a new fastener at the weekend and see if this sorts the problem, since the connection on the passenger side looks to be holding fine!

Another slightly worrying thing I discovered is that, when I accellerate hard up to about 180 to 200 km/h and then go really hard on the breaks and dip the clutch, the engine cuts out. This happened twice last night. It starts up again fine. It's a bit odd... It seems that there's a fueling problem? Perhaps too much air going into the engine (due to the speed of the car) and not enough fuel (given the low revs after dipping the clutch)?

Failed CO test

I picked up the Ghibli from the garage yesterday and found that it had not passed the Carbon Monoxide (CO) test.

I suspected it might not since it was pretty close last year too.

My car is categorised as E2, which apparently means that it must not emit more than 0.5% CO at 3000rpm (high idle). The guy who tested the car said it was emitting over 2% CO, over 4 times the legal level. I asked him if he thought it was the catalysts, but he suspected not. He thought the engine was not running smoothly and may just need a good shake down. He asked if I drove the car regularly and when I said no, he seemed to think that taking it for a long hard drive may help.

I suspect that the problem is with the fuel map.


If you look at the last dyno test above from Rica, you can see that at approximately 2600rpm the mixture suddenly becomes rich, with a Lambda value of about 0.84. In order for me to determine if the catalysts are the problem, I need to rule out this rich mixture as being the cause; running a rich mixture means that there's more likelihood of unburnt hydrocarbons leaving the cylinder (i.e. some of the fuel doesn't get burnt since there's not enough air in the mixture).

My intent therefore is to take the car back to Rica and ask them to remap the fuel, paying particular attention below 3500rpm to keep the Lambda value above 0.95.

If the CO is still bad after this, then I'll start to become a bit suspicious of the catalysts. The car is due a big service, so if it's still failing after this then I shall try the test with some known good catalysts and see how it gets on then.

Parts for Maseratis!

I was just reading through the Dutch Maserati Club forum (and my wife thinks I can't read Dutch indeed... seems that I can when it suits me) and came across a link to the EurospareS UK website... and it's fantastic!

I broke the plastic neck to the windscreen washer tank, so I need a new one. I looked it up on the EurospareS site and found it no problems using the parts drawings.


And the best bit is... it only costs GBP 3.00 (about €4.50)! I think I'll be using this website alot!

Rica appointment booked

Seems like the guys at Rica are pretty busy at the moment! I just called to make an appointment for this week, but they're fully booked up until next week. But then my car is in the garage for a big service next week, which means that I can't take the car until the following week! So unfortunately it's going to be 3 weeks before I get to the dyno!

But there's plenty happening in the meantime... today the car is having it's APK (road worthiness test... finger's crossed that it passes, in particular the emmissions test!), the new wheels should be ready for the end of the week (although I'm suspecting that it's going to be the following week) and like I said above, the car's in for its 60k km big service next week!

BMC DIA installation complete

 
I managed to finally complete the installation of the BMC DIA airboxes to my Ghibli this afternoon. It actually only took me an hour to replace the flexible alluminium piping with silicone hose on the passenger side, which was much quicker than on the driver's side. This was predominantly down to good fortune though, since the straight section of 70mm pipe that I trimmed off the 90 degree elbow turned out to be the exact size needed to attach the bend to the already installed piping.

 
The final installation looks quite nice. I've tightened up the fittings on the driver's side to the compressor inlet and it seems sturdy enough now. Will just have to keep an eye on it to make sure that it doesn't work free. The passenger side connection looks pretty robust though.

 
My only concern now is that, when I opened the bonnet after parking the car in the street, I noticed that there was "steam" coming from the newly fitted oil vapour recovery filters (I say steam , but it was more likely oil vapour?). Thinking it through, this shouldn't be too much of an issue, since if the oil vapour recovery system was as per OEM, then this "steam" would be circulated into the air inlet system and ultimately burnt inside the cylinder. So I suppose the only difference now is environmental... I expect that it's environmentally more sound to burn the vapour in the engine than to let it vent directly to atmosphere?

The car sounds good when driving. I can just about make out the induction noise, but it's quite subtle until I lift off the throttle, when it makes a very distinctive noise, like the engine is exhaling a breathful of air.

I'll try and book a session at Rica next week (to remap the fuel and to get a dyno test done to see the performance improvements), assuming that the car gets through the APK (road worthiness test) OK. 

Tire supplier

Since I'm not too impressed having to wait so long to get my Bridgestone tires (apparently they were ordered the same time as the wheels, so that's a 9 week lead time!!!) I had a look online and came across Auto Banden Markt.

The prices seem pretty decent and they have an agent in Den Haag, which is pretty convenient. If it wasn't for the fact that I need to check if the wheel/tire combination is going to fit, I'd go and pick up the wheels and buy the tires here.

Anyway, here's a picture of the tires that I'm waiting for and here's how the tire performs (seems OK as long as you don't venture out in the snow, which I have no intention of doing!). It's also good to see that there are plenty of manufacturers that supply the new tire sizes that I'll be requiring.

Wheels have arrived!

Just spoke to Korst Banden and they informed me that my wheels have arrived. Unfortunately, they're now waiting for the tires to arrive, since I think the rear tires are a bit of an unusual size.

Hopefully, next week I'll be able to go and get them fitted, assuming everything goes OK with road worthiness test that I have booked for Monday morning.

Fingers crossed...

Driving with the Stig

I was just looking through Enrico's pages and came across a story I sent him a few months back, so thought I'd post a link to it.

A while back I was fortunate enough to go to a hospitality event at Lelystad, where they have skid pan and track facilities. I was taught how to control the Ghibli in slippery conditions and had lots of time to practice controlling the car in opposite lock on the circular skid track they have there.

But the highlight of the event was being a passenger to BBC Top Gear's famous driver, the Stig. He certainly put my driving skills into perspective!

Tuned Maserati Ghibli Cup

I've read about this car on Enrico's Maserati pages (he's actually got the car for sale here), but stumbled across this page after doing a Google search for Maserati Ghibli.

This guy has spend a small fortune on his Ghibli Cup. Although I don't really share his taste in the cosmetic changes that he's made, his experience with the exhaust and Motec ECU installation is pretty interesting. I'm not convinced that the cost of the Motec ECU is warranted mind you... I agree that the standard ECU system on the Ghibli is rather slow and antiquated, but that's purely on the processing side; the input sensors aren't the problem.

If you take the Ghibli to a decent chip tuning outfit then they will upgrade the existing processor in the OEM ECU. This is what Rica did on mine and straight away there was a noticeable increase in preformance on the dyno of about 10 hp if I recall correctly.

More BMC airbox work

 
This weekend I managed to fit in a couple more hours on the car before watching England get knocked out of the World Cup (disgraceful). As you might be able to make out from the picture above, I didn't quite manage to complete the BMC airbox installation, but did manage to get over half of it done.

 
In the pic above you can see that I've now fitted the oil vapour recovery filters properly! After ordering the right sized filters (13mm ones) and getting some oil/fuel hose (also 13mm), I've located the new filters at the front of the engine block, so that they can receive some reasonably cool air. I think they look cute!

 
I've also replaced the alluminium flexible pipe on the driver's side with some more robust silicone pipe as you can see in the picture above. The only concern that I have is that there's no barb on the connection to the compressor and that it's difficult to get a good connection with the silicone pipe here... I'm really worried that the hose is going to slip off or vibrate itself off. If anyone's got any ideas on how to prevent this (other than clamping it very tightly) then I'd like to hear!

I'll try and get the passenger side changed out next weekend and get some decent pictures of the finished article posted early next week. I also need to sort out that dyno run! And get the car road tested! Busy, busy, busy...